His Life – His Works
Charles John Huffan Dickens
early alias: Boz
Born: February 7, 1812
Portsmouth England
The Life of
Charles Dickens
Dickens was born in London, England on February 7, 1812. He lived in
poverty and suffered greatly. When he was 12, his father, a gambler who
liked to live beyond his means, was jailed for debt. Charles had to go to
work.
Charles worked long hours in a shoe polish factory. He worked 40-60 hours
per week putting labels on bottles of shoe polish. He was paid poorly for
this.
This experience was so influential on Dickens that his literary work reflects
how it effected him. This experience was also enough to make Charles take the
side of the underdog (the person not expected to win, for example, the poor).
Many of his characters are children who suffer from poverty.
Oliver Twist asking the orphanage governor
for more food.
Victorian London was the largest, most
spectacular city in the world. Britain was
experiencing the Industrial Revolution, its capital
was reaping the benefits and suffering the
consequences. In 1800 London’s population was
around a million,
by 1880 4.5 million.
Dickens’ London:
was a London of rapid change. Important transportation and
manufacturing advancements were made each year. Products could be
made faster and people could travel farther and more quickly.
This had its problems!
-mostly women and children were laborers in factories
-pollution began to choke the city
-the government and other people became corrupt by greed
Working and living conditions deteriorated
in London. The judicial system was corrupt,
sanitation was not widely practiced, and
members of the lower class were treated poorly.
This picture shows typical housing for the poor-many people crammed
into small quarters where disease and fires were devastating.
City streets—people & places A time of contradictions.
Imagine yourself in the
London of the early 19th century.
Homes of the upper and middle class
exist in close proximity to areas of
unbelievable poverty and filth.
Street sweepers attempt to keep the
streets clean of manure,
the result of thousands of horse-drawn
vehicles.
Children as young as 5 were often set to work begging or
sweeping chimneys in London, England the nineteenth century.
You would most likely be working a 12 to 16 hour shift for
a very low salary, maybe one pence.
Child
Labor
The city's thousands of chimney pots are
belching coal smoke, resulting in soot which
seems to settle everywhere.
In many parts of the city raw sewage flows in
gutters that empty into the Thames (tɛmz).
These works all relate to a deteriorating human condition. Dickens
realistically portrays people and the city of London.
Young boys working in the coal mines.
A political cartoon depicting how unsanitary the drinking water was for
the poor. It came directly from the Thames River, where raw sewage was
dumped. Many died from drinking it.
Dickens became angered with these changes. His later novels are laced with
satire about education, government, greed, sanitation, and the treatment of
children and the poor.
Because Dickens works criticize the treatment of women, children and the poor.
He helped to change he way they were treated. He is now known as an
important social reformer.
This picture of “street boys” was a common sight.
These boys, as young as 4, lived on the streets and
begged for food (and tried to steal it).
Charles Dickens
Married: Catherine (Hogarth) Dickens
April 2, 1836 in St. Luke's Church, Chelsea
10 Children
Dickens– His Works
Dickens– Early Works
• The Pickwick Papers - April 1836 to
November 1837
• Oliver Twist - February 1837 to April 1839
• Nicholas Nickleby - April 1838 to October
1839
• The Old Curiosity Shop - 25 April 1840 to
6 February 1841
• Barnaby Rudge - 13 February 1841, to 27
November 1841
Dickens– Christmas
Stories
• A Christmas Carol – 1843 (ghost)
• The Chimes – 1844 (goblin)
• The Cricket on the Hearth – 1845 (fairy
tale)
• The Battle of Life – 1846
• The Haunted Man and the Ghost's
Bargain – 1848 (ghost)
All were done as complete novels, not serials.
Dickens– Later Works
• David Copperfield - May 1849 to
November 1850
• Bleak House - March 1852 to September
1853
• Little Dorrit - December 1855 to June 1857
• A Tale of Two Cities - 30 April 1859, to 26
November 1859
• Great Expectations - 1 December 1860 to 3
August 1861
Dickens major novels were published
serially-monthly or weekly. A full length
novel cost 31 shillings. In 1836, 6 to 20
shillings were earned per week. A monthly
installment (32 pages with 2 illustrations
and advertisements) could be sold for a
shilling.
“Dickens’ greatest friendship
was, from the beginning, with his
audience.”
“In all of
English literature,
his creativity is
rivaled only by
Shakespeare's.”
Dickens' cherished little Christmas story, the
best loved and most read of all of his books,
began life as the result of the author's
desperate need of money, expecting their fifth
child. Published (5 shillings - affordable to
nearly everyone) during the week before
Christmas 1843 it was an instant sensation.
Dickens work was instantly the victim of
pirated editions. Copyright laws in England
were often loosely enforced.
“..it was the Christmas stories of
Dickens that
rekindled the joy
of Christmas in
Britain and
America.”
“I have endeavoured in this
Ghostly little book….
to raise the Ghost of an Idea…
May it haunt their houses
pleasantly,
And no one wish to lay it down.”
Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol
Literary Quotes
Bah Humbug!
“I wear the chains I forged in life.”
Date of Death: Thursday, June 9, 1870 (stroke)
Burial: Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, London
Works Cited
•Charles Dickens
http://www.clovisusd.k12.ca.us/learn/curriculum/language/dickens/Dickens%20In
tro.ppt
•David Perdue’s Charles Dickens Page
http://www.fidnet.com/~dap1955/dickens
•TNT’s A Christmas Carol
http://tnt.turner.com/movies/tntoriginals/xmascarol/
•Charles Dickens Gad’s Hill Place
http://www.perryweb.com/Dickens/
•Charles Dickens Victorian Web Site
http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/dickens/dickensov.html
•Victoriana
http://www.victoriana.com/welcome/
•The World of Charles Dickens
http://www.geocities.com/pdubelbeis/